Are your eating habits making your skin age faster than it should?

We list out the worst culprits in your diet

It’s not just about what you put on your face that keeps you looking young, it’s about what you put in your body. The most multi-tasking, technologically advanced (read expensive) skin products will be useless if the food you eat is ageing you. Vogue spoke to Krupa Mhatre, assistant head of nutrition, Gold’s Gym, Mumbai, to help us recognise and substitute the culprits.

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Sugar

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Sugar

Processed sugar ages your skin faster than a lifetime of sun worship! The link between sugar and ageing is in the process known as glycation, which damages collagen (the protein that keeps skin smooth and firm) making it saggy, baggy and wrinkly.

Artificial sweeteners

Artificial sweeteners do far more harm than good. The high aspartame content in them aggravate allergies and histamine reactions, causes inflammation and paradoxically, increases the ageing effects of glycation like wrinkles and sagging skin. So they aren’t that different from processed sugar after all.

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Food swap: Although it is good practise to keep your sugar intake to a minimum (including from natural sweeteners), organic honey is a more nutritious, natural option for aspartame and other synthetic products.

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Coffee

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Coffee

Your ultimate energy pick-me-up may be doing you more harm than good. Drinking copious amounts (anything over two cups a day) of coffee dehydrates your body, which causes skin to dry out and look sallow. Add to that, if your caffeine tipple of choice comes loaded with cream and sugar—in two words: empty calories!

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Food swap: Green or herbal/fruit infusion teas have the requisite amount of caffeine and are loaded with antioxidants to boot.

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Simple carbs

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Simple carbs

Foods like white bread and pasta have a high glycemic index, which results in skin inflammation (breaking down elastin and collagen) and increase in blood sugar levels. Hello, diabetes.

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Food swap: Try complex carbs like multigrain products, brown rice and oats instead, which digest slowly and keep you feeling full for longer. Plus they have a high fibre content that keeps your digestion healthy.

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Red/processed meat

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Red/processed meat

Red meat has high levels of carnitine, a compound that causes wrinkling and hardening of blood vessels. The high salt and preservative content in processed meat causes dehydration and inflammation, leading to bloating and water retention, causing saggy skin.

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Food swap: Switch to lean white meat like chicken, turkey or fish (which are great sources of vitamin B12 and omega 3 and 6 fats) and keep red meat consumption to a maximum of once a week.

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Aerated drinks

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Aerated drinks

Yes, they taste great with a burger and fries, but sodas are a triple threat—the high acid content erodes tooth enamel (the hardest substance in the body), the high sodium level dehydrates causing puffiness, and the super high sugar content dulls your complexion.

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Food swap: The triple youth whammy—coconut water! Its pH is the same as plasma (which alkalises the acid levels in the blood), it’s a diuretic that flushes out toxins and has a naturally sweet, cool flavor.

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Salt

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Salt

Cooking with less salt does not mean your salt intake is low. Most packaged food has excessive hidden salt, used as flavouring or preservative (pickles, chips, canned goods), which leads to water retention and bags under your eyes. Also, if you have a thyroid condition, iodised salt will disrupt your levels.

Fried food

There are times when it’s impossible to resist the lure of hot pakoras, fries or hot chicken wings. But apart form the obvious heart and weight issues, the high levels of trans fats also gives rise to acne.

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Food swap: Boiled, roasted, steamed or grilled versions of the same food may not have the same zing (you could also try an air fryer) but are definitely the better option.

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Spicy food

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Spicy food

Spicy food aggravates rosacea, especially for women undergoing menopause as the blood vessels in the skin are more reactive. It dilates the capillaries, making skin blotchy and enhancing spider veins.